Science fiction writers are fascinated by humanity’s capacity for self-destruction and AI has provided them with the inspiration for many great Hollywood villains.

Some, like the android Ash in Alien or Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey, strike far from home, where no-one can hear you scream. Others target us from a post-apocalyptic future, like the Terminator.

Some even create alternative AI worlds to control and cultivate us, like The Matrix.

But the most unsettling are those that lie just beyond the frontiers of current technology – haunting glimpses of a future that is one scientific ‘breakthrough’ away.

It took centuries for astronomers to discover that a strange lunar dance with the sun’s rays were behind the moon’s shapeshifting.

Now, it takes just seconds for causal machine learning to explain why we see a full moon one evening and a crescent a few nights later. Artificial intelligence (AI) has clearly reached a tipping point.

Our AI-themed edition cuts through the hype to provide to explore the challenges created by emerging technologies. How will AI change the nature of work and the course of our careers? What do managers need to understand before adopting AI tools to avoid buyer's remorse? How can firms adopt a sustainable approach to AI? What impact will AI have on fintech?

Core Edition 11 also features insights on framing and sharing strategy, how firms can embed the Sustainable Development Goals, leadership lessons to help the NHS thrive at 75, and why bosses should wake up to the benefits of power naps.